Everybody Comes to Rick's

For this week’s entry I decided to do a very old, but good movie adapted from a play called Everybody Comes to Rick’s. The movie Casablanca is a great screenplay to analyze because it contains all the necessary elements that make up a great screenplay. The set-up of the screenplay quickly introduces what is going on in the movie and who our main character is, the two plot points keep the story nicely flowing, and the resolution effectively ties the movie together and shows the main character going through a very interesting and unexpected change.

Casablanca is set in an unoccupied Africa during the early stages of the Second World War. Europeans fleeing to America from the Germans set up refuge in a town called Casablanca where, from there, they must wait there for exit visas that are nearly impossible to get a hold of. The first few minutes of the screenplay sets up this story by showing the police looking for the culprit who killed two German couriers carrying two very valuable transit letters. These transit letters will shortly be entrusted to Rick Blaine, our main character. In the set-up we learn that this American, a former freedom fighter, owns the hottest nightspot in town that everyone goes to. Although very popular, Rick is a very cynical and isolated man. So when he gets hold of these two very valuable, unquestionable by law, transit letters he probably won’t give them up so easily. This presents itself as the inciting incident, and first plot point, because an acquaintance of Rick’s gave him the letters and is then killed by the police under charges of murdering the couriers. Rick’s friend had to be killed in order to start the plot of Rick having a lot of power with the control of these letters.

In Act two we learn of the European Resistance Leader, Victor Lazlo, who is coming to Casablanca in an attempt to get to America. A German named Major Strasser occupies Casablanca for a while to try and capture him with the help of French Chief of Police, Captain Renault. When Victor hears that Rick has unquestionable transit letters he knows that Rick is his only help to escape. This won’t be so easy for Victor when Rick sees him walk into his bar with the love of his life Isla. For unknown reasons Isla left Victor in Paris and was never heard from again until now. This causes Rick to be very hostile towards Victor and Isla, and he lets them know he has no intention of giving up the visas. The major obstacle that Rick faces in the second act is when he finds out Isla is married to Victor, and has been since before they met in Paris.

Rick and Isla begin to fall in love again and Rick starts thinking about what he will do with the visas. Does he keep them for himself to leave for America with Isla? Or does he send Isla and Victor to America so Victor can continue his freedom movement. We learn of a plan that Rick has to trick Victor into staying in Casablanca so he and Isla, who are in love again, can escape to America. This is the second plot point at the end of act two that carries us into the very exciting resolution.

The writers of this screenplay did a tremendous job in molding Rick’s character into someone who only looks after himself. He’s been through it all and he is sick of everything. He owns the hottest place in town, but yet he often sits in solitude. His character represents America’s political position at this time of the war. Rick, like the USA, at this time is a sleeping giant, and if anyone wakes him he has the power to control the outcome of some very important events. So when Rick goes through a major character change during the resolution, the audience becomes that much more attached to Rick. Knowing that what he and Isla had in Paris is only meant to remain as heavenly memories he decides to send Victor to America with her. Rick realized that she is the foundation of Victor’s powers in the movement against German’s and she must stay with Victor.

Rick continues this big change when he kills Major Strasser in an act of self-defense, and while guarding the escaping plan with Ilsa in it. This is what puts Rick back in the Resistance against the Germans. Especially with Captain Renault on his side, Rick will make a very good freedom fighter.

Screenplay by: Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch